Lately, in the back of my mind I have been asking myself -- time to report on your mental health and progress on your blog on the 'kaiserwellness' site -- don't you think? Well, I looked at my last post on my mental awareness journey -- which was in August -- regarding my good friend Carlos (a fellow train/bicycle commuter) and that post seemed far from today. A large amount has happened since then. Possibly too much to discuss in the current blog post. Maybe I will split the post up into two parts? I will ramble initially now and then in a couple weeks, I can write a more coherent post about the stuff that I left out on this post? Sound good? Alright, here we go....What has been happening over the last few months in regards to my health and wellness? A lot.
The last post was describing changes that a friend had made in his life by incorporating a bicycle into his commute to realize a better (and healthier) lifestyle. In addition, the changes were voluntary and sometimes difficult (in the case of taking less pay to realize better health). I am astonished by Carlos and others like him. I hold them in high regard to success stories about changing habits in life and reaping the wonderful benefits. Specifically, being proactive rather than reactive. The reason I say this is because typically, most of us tend to be reactive in our health. I know -- before you say it -- "Most of us....who are you talking about?" Well, the majority of the people that I interact with tend to be "reactive" rather than "proactive". What does that say about who I keep in company? Remember, I said "most people". I tend to interact with a large amount of people. This is different from who I surround myself with on a personal level. These people are typically "proactive" people that are interested in making choices which result in a better life. Visit the site of 'www.psychologytoday.com' and there is ample evidence of the necessity to do so to be successful.
That is not to say that I am stuck up. Nope. I like to talk to anyone who is willing to talk to me. In fact, that is my downfall (my wife says sometimes to me). On the upside, I get to hear about people's stories -- testimonials -- if you will about changes that have resulted in either success or failure. That is gratitude coming out right there. I am blessed to hear people's experiences and take those experiences and apply them in the form of "optimizing" my life to attain better health. That does not mean -- think of myself as better in any regard.
Success is broadly defined and can be dangerous in many respects when taken to an extreme. What do I mean by that? Sometimes, when a person holds themselves to a high regard or compares themselves to a "successful" person in the media, that can be extremely dangerous. Why do I use this as an example? Because, too often do we look for examples in the media or newspress for a good, solid, example of success. Also, too often we find examples of success in one area. Warren Buffett can be used as an example. He makes billions of dollars through Berkshire Hathaway each year. Seems to me that in the financial community that some might place him in the category of "successful." Would you not agree? Although, he has had a marriage where his wife lived in California while he resided in Omaha (Nebraska). Does this make him a bad person? Not at all. In fact, during a video interview (rare interview) -- his wife -- Susan Buffett -- she talked wonderfully about their marriage, love, respect for one another. On some level, a person might question the attribute or label of 'success' to Warren as a result of their living in different geographical locations throughout the decades of their marriage. As it turns out, and is discussed in the interview with Charlie Rose, he is a 'cerebral' man that needs to live within his head. No disrespect intended to any other person.
Success is strangely defined by each of us. Over the past few months, I have had some success with our bicycle advocacy. Also, I have had failures in my exercise routine that have led to success as a result. Let me tell you about them briefly.
After writing the last post, I was invited to submit a talk/presentation to the California Bicycle Summit to speak about our advocacy -- www.bikecar101.com. I was delighted to be able to give a talk in October. All of the energy from advocating to preparing to speak had been spent and I was not able to write any post on the progress. Ya right. Alright, I am full of crap. I have been mentally busy and lost track of checking in with this post. I ended up giving a presentation which can be access here (pdf format). This was a great success to me. I was out of my realm. At the same time though, I had been riding the train, showing up to board meetings with Metrolink board members, and other meetings to advocate for greater bicycle infrastructure on each train. I did actually put in the time (great efforts) to practice. Now I had to condense the progress into 15 minutes -- which was extremely difficult to do. I managed to do so and everything worked out. The audience was wonderful and motivational. Furthermore, the conference was exceptional and inspirational. Advocating for greater use of the Metrolink train and bicycle storage on the train is not very popular. A small percentage of the Southern California rides the Metrolink train system. Of course, an even smaller proportion of that small proportion make up the bicycle culture. The challenge was set the day that my wife and I set out to change the system ( last year). No one said that success would be made over night. But, we are making improvements and are known to the train systems in the Southern California that we are interested in advocating for greater infrastructure.
I mentioned a failure or some failures. What failures do I speak of? Well, recently, (and I will stop after), I did not get to ride the train for a couple of weeks. What I mean to say that is with the Thanksgiving holiday coupled to a job related duty, I did not ride the train or bicycle for two weeks. This hurt me. And the reason why I can say this is that not riding my bicycle along with a train took me to a similar mental and physical state as my friend Carlos. I started feeling more stressed and could not think straight. You might be questioning my description, but I am telling the truth. Similar to Carlos, sitting in traffic and working with no physical outlet started to result in physical maladies. I started having some stress pains in my chest by the end of the week. Clearly, I am not cut out to be idle and not exercise. I know this about myself and managed to let myself slip into this rut. This was not good.
As I have said in the past: We all deserve to feel great. We all deserve to live a happy, relatively-stress free life. Although, this takes work on all of our parts. Only you know how to fix yourself.
I think that I have rambled on enough for today. Check back in a couple of weeks. There will be further coverage over the last 6 months of wellness. Have a great day.